Wire stretcher



Feb. 19, 1957 F. E. WAGONER WIRE STRETCHER Filed Feb. 8, 1954 'IIIIIIIIII [MENTOR Wave/5 5 iVayo/rer Arrak EK United States Patent WIRE STRETCHER Francis Eugene Wagoner, Miami, Okla. Application February 8, 1954, Serial No. 408,745 1 Claim. (Cl. 254-162) This invention relates to tools or implements commonly employed on farms and ranches and more particularly to an improved wire stretcher, the plimary object being to provide a convenient, relatively inexpensive tool capable of applying great force to the wire to be stretched, all with little efiiort on the part of theuser.

It is a most important object of the present invention to provide a wire stretcher that may be easily and quickly attached to an anchor post or the like and to which the wire may likewise be rapidly joined without diliiculty for coiling about a rotatable spindle when the stretcher is placed in operation.

Other objects include the way in which the aforementioned spindle is rotatably mounted between a pair of substantially identical heads; the manner in which the heads are provided with jaws that effectively grip the anchor post to prevent slippage of the stretcher when attached to the post; the manner of providing means of attachment for the stretcher so that the same may be used with posts of various diameters; the manner of providing power mechanism in the nature of a gear train to rotate the spindle; the utilization of ratchet-pawl mechanism to hold the spindle against retrograde Totation; the way in which the heads are joined by a supporting standard; and many additional objects all of which will be made clear as the following specification progresses.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a side elevational view of a wire stretcher made pursuant to my present invention showing the same in operative use with a post and with wire to be stretched thereby.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged top plan view thereof.

Fig. 3 is a vertical cross sectional view taken on line IlI-III of Fig. 2; and

Fig. 4 is a cross sectional view taken on line lV-IV of Fig. 3.

Conventional means for stretching wire take various forms and are unsatisfactory for many reasons. Many types require tremendous energy on the part of the user; others tend to slip when the wire is drawn taut; some types are incapable of drawing extremely long lengths of wire sufficiently taut; and still others require a relatively large space for operation and necessitate the use of a tractor or other power means for proper operation.

vSuch disadvantages and many others will be eliminated through use of the stretcher illustrated in the drawing, wherein is provided an upper head, broadly designated by the numeral 10, and alower head 12 substantially identical therewith. The heads and 12 are joined in a spaced apart relationship one above the other by an elongated rod or standard 14, cross pins 16 and 18 in heads 10 and 12 respectively serving to join the standard 14 thereto.

An elongated, preferably tubular spindle 20 between the heads 10 and 12 in parallelism with the vertical standard 14 is rotatably carried between heads 10 and 12 by bolt-nut means 22 and 24 respectively.

When the stretcher is placed in use to draw a wire fence or the like 26 taut, the stretcher is attached to an anchor post or the like chains 30 and 32 for heads 10 and 12 respectively. A bifurcated lug 34 on each head 10 and 12 receives one end of the corresponding chain 30-32 and an opposed lug 36 receives take-up means in the nature of an eye-bolt 38 and a nut 40 thereon. Thus, when one of the links of the chain is inserted in the lug 34, depending upon the diameter of the post 28, jaws 42 and 44 integral with the heads 10 and 12 respectively are clamped tightly to the post 28 through use of It is noted that the jaws 42 V shaped and provided with serrations which bite 40 are drawn tight.

Means is provided to rotate the spindle 20 when the individual wires 46 of the fence 26 are threaded through a series of openings 48 in the manner shown in Fig. l of the drawing. In this connection it is obvious that any number of individual wires may be stretched taut in the same manner. The spindle rotating means includes a gear 50 attached to the head 10 by means of bolt 22 and which gear 50 has a plug 52 extending into the upper end of the spindle 2t and afiixed thereto by a crosspin 54. The rotating means includes additionally a smaller gear or pinion 56 carried by the head 10 through the medium of a rotatable shaft 58. A key 60 interconnects the shaft 58 and the pinion 56 for rotation together, it being understood that the gears 50 and 56 are in meshing relationship. The upper end of the shaft 58 is provided with flats 62 for accommodating a wrench, socket tool, ratcheting means, or the like to permit manual rotation of the shaft 53.

Apparatus is also provided to releasably hold the spindle 20 against retrograde rotation. Such apparatus includes a sprocket wheel 64 secured to the head 12 by bolt 24 and provided with a plug 66 that extends into the lowermost end of the spindle 20 and is joined thereto by a crosspin 63. A pawl 70 is swingably mounted on the head 12 by a bolt 72'and is yieldably biased toward the teeth of sprocket wheel 64 through the medium of spring 74 interposed between the pawl 70 and an embossment 76 on the head 12.

The manner of releasably mounting the stretcher upon the post 28 has been previously described as has the manner of attaching the fence 26 to the spindle 20. The operator thereupon, merely applies a suitable tool to the flats 62 of shaft 53 to rotate the latter and thereby impart rotation to gears 56 and 5% as well as to the spindle 20. The fence 26 is coiled about the spindle 20 in a number of convolutions depending upon the slack in the fence 26 and theamount of stretching that is desired. The fence 26 is thereupon attached to the post and 44 are substantially two rows of teeth or into the post 28 when the nuts '20 in the usual manner, such as by stapling and the stretcher removed from the post 28 as well as from the fence 26 itself.

It has been found through actual use that tremendous force may be applied to the fence even though the same extends over long distances with very little effort on the part of the user because of the gear reduction between shaft 5E and the spindle 20. In this connection, means other than the specific gear assembly herein illustrated may be used to produce such results.

In one form of the invention which has been reduced to practice, pinion 56 and shaft 58 were eliminated in favor of a worm beneath the head it) and in mesh with the gear 5d. A pair of spaced brackets or bearings depending from the head 10 supported the worm for 28 by means of a pair of the take-up means 3840.'

rotation on a horizontal axis and a handle was provided on one end of the worm.

It is now also apparent that the stretcher is capable of rendering the wire stretching operation verysimple and that the time consumed in building fences can be reduced tremendously through use of the novel arrangement hereinabove described;

Having thus described the invention what is claimed as new and desired to be secured by Letters Patent is:

A wire stretcher comprising an upper elongated head and a lower elongated head, each normally disposed horizontally; a substantially V-shaped; post-cngaging-, toothed jaw integral with one end' of' each head respectively; a post-embracing chain coupled with each head respectively for clamping the jaw thereof to the post, each chain having bolt and nut take-up means on one end thereof for drawing the jaws tightly against the post, each head having a pair of opposed, bifurcated lugs on the sides thereof, one for releasable engagement with the take-up means and the other for releasable engagement with a selected chain link; a normally upright standard rigidly interconnecting the heads adjacent their jaws; an elongated, tubular spindle between the heads at the opposite ends thereof; plugs secured to the spindle and closing the ends thereof; bolt and nut means attaching each plug to the proximal head for rotation of the plugs and the spindle together as a unit on the normally vertical, longitudinal axis of the spindle; a gear integral with the uppermost'plug' between the spindle and the upper head; a vertical shaft rotatably carried by the upper head between the gear and the standard; a pinion on the shaft below the upper head and in mesh with said gear for rotating the spindle upon rotation of said shaft; a number of flats on the upper end of the shaft above the upper head for securing a tool to rotate the shaft; a toothed sprocket wheel integral with the lowermost plug between the spindle and the lower head; a pawl swingable horizontally on the lower" head between the wheel and the standard; and a spring on the lower head engaging the pawl for yieldably biasing the latter against the teeth of the'wheel' for releasably holding the spindle against retrograde rotation, said spindle having a series of transverse wire-receiving opening throughout the length thereof.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED sTATEs PATENTS 1,048,626 Wood Dec. 31, 1912 1,057,901 Turner Apr. 1, 1913 2,309,769 Hubbard Feb. 2, 1943 2,312,084 Dyer Feb. 23, 1943 2,493,687 Mott Ian. 3, 1950 

